UCI Med School To Use Google Glass

Starting in May, UC Irvine's School of Medicine will introduce 10 pairs of Google Glass into its curriculum for third- and fourth-year students to use in the operating room and emergency department. UCI medical school will be the first medical school in the nation to fully immerse this technology into its four-year curriculum, revolutionizing the way students learn new information and interact with their professors.

By August, 20 to 30 additional pairs of Google Glass will be introduced for all students to wear. The use of Google Glass will range from first- and second-year anatomy courses to critical skills training, and will eventually be featured in third- and fourth-year hospital rotations. UCI med school faculty will also be using the technology.

“Medical education has always been very visual and very demonstrative, and Glass has enormous potential to positively impact the way we can educate physicians in real time,” Dr. Warren Wiechmann, who is the assistant clinical professor of emergency medicine and associate dean of instructional technologies spearheading the Google Glass program, told UCI News.

The incorporation of Google Glass comes second to another technological liaison by the school, which introduced iPads as the primary learning tool for all medical students. As part of the iMedEd initiative that was launched in 2010 by the School of Medicine, every medical student was given an iPad that was filled with “electronic medical texts, podcasts, reference materials, and notes for all course work and clinical experiences – along with training on point-of-care ultrasound devices and state-of-the-art medical simulation,” according to UCI News.